Values and Ethical Practice - Level 8

All students should be encouraged to reflect on the importance of ethical practice in child care and protection. Using case examples from different practice settings they will need to demonstrate that while balancing the needs of children and their parents, they can ensure the child’s needs remain paramount.

Students will be expected to show that they can demonstrate social work values in their learning relationships with their peers and teaching staff as well as service users and carers. Students who cannot treat their fellow students with dignity and respect should not have access to service users and carers and may not be able to progress with their studies.

In group and individual tutorials students will be expected to reflect in more depth on their experiences and the "use of self" in their practice. Students might also consider this in reflective logs. Students should expect to be challenged if they express views which are in conflict with social work values. The focus of this is that as practitioners they will need to be able to provide a professional service to a range of service users whose circumstances, behaviour or views may challenge their value base. This might include adults, children and young people who exhibit sexually harmful behaviour, asylum seekers and their children, substance misusing parents.

Prior to the assessed practice learning opportunity students will be required to demonstrate that they are clear about the nature of professional boundaries and this could be explored using role play. For example, what would they do if an adult they were working with disclosed to them they had been sexually abused by a family member and they were worried about their 6 year old niece having contact with this person, but asked them "not to say anything"?